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Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
I don't know if his defensive awareness is bad, I've seen him on the rare occasion make some pretty good back flow reads.
Here's what I think.
I think he's just a bit lazy, he's got natural skills that he uses, his speed, stickhandling, his vision with the puck. But he's just a lazy coaster on the back check when he's not flying by. I don't think he has near the physical game that a Crosby has. Crosby is a board beast, he's incredibly strong.
Also again there's the face offs, he's atrocious and always has been.
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I don’t necessarily think he’s a bit lazy, I think, as they alluded to on HNIC, he’s conserving energy.
They were selling the notion on HNIC as if Hitch has VO2 max contact lenses when he raved about McDavid’s recovery.
Maybe he’s just recovering as much as humanly possible on the ice.
I also noticed this in 31 thoughts.
https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...liam-nylander/
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25. Edmonton coach Ken Hitchcock asked Mike Modano to watch a few Oilers games and send some notes about McDavid. Via text, Modano said you’re always working on playing without the puck.
“The best way is to have [McDavid] kill penalties. You have to stop and start a lot more, face the puck. Not swinging away from it. All the best players had to implement this, or their teams would have never won.”
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It’s basic physics that one of the hardest parts of hockey is stopping then starting again. It’s momentum loss combined with a player’s energy loss then the requirement to ramp it back up again all while being aware of the play & player. It’s the essence of being quick & strong with endurance.
If Hitch does get Connor to buy in on this... let’s see his recovery time & how many minutes he can play and how much his offensive production suffers.
It’s one thing to get Crosby to play this way, that’s his game. Getting McDavid to play this way would be like asking Bure.
I don’t think it’s necessarily can he do it as much as should he? Do you gain more than you lose in offensive production?